"Money is something outside the body", but for thousands of years, people have been pursuing an immutable law, that is, "making money", whether it is the ancient war of plundering the city, or the continuous development of modern science and technology, tracing its source, is for a word "money". The history of money has been more than three thousand years, the earliest Xia Dynasty is not popular currency, just exchange between things, the earliest currency was born in the Shang Dynasty three thousand years ago, when people have begun to use a special shell as a valuable exchange, people with these shells with ropes for tandem, and wear them around the waist for commodity exchange. This shell was later called "shell coin", and it was also the earliest currency in China.
China's history of using shells as currency is very early, as early as the Shang Dynasty, shells have become a common currency carrier throughout the country. As for why shells became coins, there are two main reasons, one of which is the rarity and beautiful appearance of shells, and the second is that the smelting technology of gold and silver in that era was very scarce.
Logically, shells were not too difficult to see at that time, so why don't people living by the sea rely on picking up shells to directly entangle their homes? If at that time, I relied on picking up shells every day, could I get rich? The answer is no, but there are three main reasons.
First of all, although shell coins were fully integrated into life at that time, shell coins were not the only type of currency. In human economic activities, in addition to shells, turtle shells, bronze, shovels, knives, and cloth can also be used as equivalent exchange items, that is, although shell coins had the function of money at that time, their status was not unique.
Secondly, after the shell is circulated as currency, there will be specialized merchants to make a large number of acquisitions, and then transported to the inland use, in thousands of years ago, the cost of transportation can be imagined how high. Therefore, these merchants will reduce prices in order to make money, so those workers who rely on "picking shells" generally will not achieve rapid wealth.
Especially in the Spring and Autumn Warring States period, copper coins began to appear in people's lives, ordinary shells have obviously not been able to meet people's exchange needs, people even all the shells and agricultural tools, all built into bronze currency, and then began to appear copper shells to replace ordinary shells, and copper shells later developed into round square hole copper coins, this copper money has continued until the Qing Dynasty in China, shell coins completely began to exist.
Secondly, it can be seen from the various shell coins unearthed in archaeology that the shells that can become money must also be rare varieties, such as tiger skin, oat shell, date shell, ring shell and so on. These are shells, belonging to the "precious family" in the shells, equivalent to modern rare wild animals. Once salvaged, it must be machined, polished on the back, and often punched for easy carrying. It is not only a currency, but also a favorite ornament of primitive people. Until the middle of the Shang Dynasty, the value of the shell coins was still very high, and it was a great honor for the subordinates to receive the reward of the king's shell coins.
That is to say, all the shells that can become money have unique characteristics, they are generally quite rare and precious, which is fully in line with what we now call the characteristics of "rare things are precious", so in that era of less developed civilization, it has become a luxury for ordinary people to be able to own such shells, let alone to get rich by picking up shells. No wonder experts also say: it is the smart people who don't pick it up.
In this way, on the one hand, because the shells that serve as money are quite rare, on the other hand, the development of the times makes the shells be quickly eliminated, and can not meet the normal life of human beings, which makes ordinary people unable to improve their economic conditions by picking shells.